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Is environmentalism part of Paganism? Part of Wicca?

Many Pagans believe strongly that environmental conservation is a necessary part of their devotion to the Goddess. However, if you go to Pagan festivals where there are many traditions represented you’ll find that others do not.

I was going to write this all not-judgy, and neutral, analysing the difference based on whether people believe in the Gods as literal beings or abstract concepts, or whether you are a religious Pagan who integrates your spirituality into your everyday life, a ceremonial magician interested primarily in energy workings and magick or a celebratory or ‘mead and cape’ Pagan. This is true, but in my opinion, not very interesting.

The thing is, I’m very solidly in the religious, the Gods are real camp and so it’s hard for me to understand how someone can sincerely believe the Earth is sacred but not feel the need to make their actions both inside and outside sacred space match those beliefs.

If find that I am much more motivated to do a thing if it’s part of a devotional practice. In service to Mother Earth / Gaia, I compost everything I can, participate in my city’s recycling program, have a solar panel on the roof of my house that heats water for bathing, and abstain from using household or yard chemicals that are harmful to the water and soil like bleach and pesticides. I believe my religion requires this. I have chosen not to birth any children, which saves our overpopulated Earth from lifetimes and generations of human consumption.

But I’m also a bit of a hypocrite. I eat meat, which is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gas emissions (particularly beef, because cow burps contain a lot of methane). I also drive a gasoline powered car, albeit a gas-sipping smart car.

All of us make choices according to our values and our willingness to sacrifice for our Gods.

I think its far better to start and be imperfect, than to do nothing at all. In that light here are some environmental devotions for Pagans to start with:

Plant trees – Plant trees in your yard or other land you have access to if you can. It could be a live Yule tree you ritually plant each spring. Growing plants pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, preventing it from contributing to global warming. The trick is, though, that when those plants rot or burn, they release the carbon dioxide again. In order to keep the carbon dioxide out of circulation as long as possible, plants that will live a long time and therefore have a body that will not rot for a long time are best, making trees a good choice. For every bonfire or campfire you have, make sure you take responsibility for that CO2 you released by planting a fast growing tree to remove it again.

Compost – How the plant and animal matter you discard rots makes a difference to what kinds of gasses are released and therefore to how harmful that rotting is. Composting releases CO2 (carbon dioxide), which contributes to global warming, but that same plant or animal rotting in a landfill, where it is usually buried underground without oxygen, rots in a different way that releases methane. Methane does a lot more harm from a global warming persective. Think composting is a lot of work? Check out my composting for lazy people post.

Planting and Composting are Very Pagan

There are lots of things you can do to honour Mother Earth, but I find planting and composting to be a good fit for Pagan devotional practice. Tree planting works well for new beginnings magic, atonement, recognizing births or prosperity magic. Composting connects us to the life-death-life cycle, and the recognition that what we let go, can come around to nourish us. It can also make concrete the process of letting go of what no longer serves us and ties us back into the full circle of nature.

No-Effort Composting

Composting doesn’t have to be hard. I have composted for 30 years, and here the simplest, lowest work way to do it in a city yard.

Buy the biggest composter that you can afford and have space for. In composting size matters. The bigger the diameter of your composting chamber, the faster your material will compost.

A purchased composter will likely be made from nylon or plastic and have a perforated bottom. These are designed to be rodent resistant. Get some zap straps / zip ties and secure the base tightly to the body of the composter and secure any hatches in the sides or base closed. This will help prevent rodents from getting in to your composter, which is the reason most people are afraid of composting all the materials they can.

Put everything that will rot into your composter – meat, coffee grounds, citrus, cooked food, food-soiled paper, animal manure, everthing. Don’t turn it, stir it or aerate it. If it gets dry (which slows it down), put some water in it. If it smells, put some dry plant matter like leaves or paper on top of the pile.

Hate cleaning smelly compost buckets? Me too. I buy paper compost bags and then just throw the whole bag in the composter. You can buy plain paper ones that will line your compost bin, or wax lined ones that you can used without a bin.

Don’t worry about your composter getting full. It will rot and the pile will reduce on its own. I’ve lived in my home for 15 years and have had to empty my composter once. If yours does get too full, it’s probably too dry or you haven’t been putting your leftover food in it as well as leaves. If you fix that and wait a few weeks, it will shrink down again. If it is truly getting food, getting a second composter will allow you to give the first one more time to shrink. It will also let the composter ‘finish’ so you can use the soil.

Other benefits of composting are:

You are preventing methane (a very powerful greenhouse gas) from entering the atmosphere.

Your garbage will no longer be smelly

You will have some nice soil to put on your garden.

The Goddess will know you walk your talk when you say the Earth is sacred.

Bob Dylan’s Shelter from the Storm is my favourite inadvertently Pagan pop songs. Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that Dylan wrote this song about the Goddess, only that it can be interpreted that way, and when it is, it’s quite beautiful and profound when held as if it was Pagan sacred music.

To me it’s about the Goddess providing us shelter in a patriarchal world, removing our ‘crown of thorns’, the suffering embedded in the Christian paradigm, being ravaged, the possibly phallic one eyed undertaker and then being welcomed by the appearance of the Goddess, with silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair, giving shelter from this world again and again, always available just across the line. Also, turning “back the clock to when God and Her were born”? The Goddess as a contemporary to God and there from the beginning? So Pagan.

But what makes is most compelling as a song about the Goddess (or a Goddess) is the deep hunger for Her solace and protection, and the feeling of being separated by one’s own barriers from connection with Her.

To underscore the interpretation of this song as the embrace of the divine feminine rather than a romance (and also because Dylan sounds terrible) I’ve chosen two women performing their versions of this song. The first is a more polished, but smoky version of the song by Claire Anne Taylor. The second is a 2011 recording by then emerging female singer Sofi Marshall. complete with harmonica intro, that has a raw, vulnerable feel to it, and preserves Dylan’s narrow melody.

The full lyrics are below. I’ve capitalized the She, which was not in the original to my knowledge.

Shelter from the Storm Lyrics by Bob Dylan

‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I’ll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved
Try imagining a place where it’s always safe and warm
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

I was burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail
Poisoned in the bushes an’ blown out on the trail
Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

Suddenly I turned around and She was standin’ there
With silver bracelets on Her wrists and flowers in Her hair
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

Now there’s a wall between us, somethin’ there’s been lost
I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed
Just to think that it all began on an uneventful morn
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it’s doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

I’ve heard newborn babies wailin’ like a mournin’ dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm
In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation and they gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence I got repaid with scorn
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

Well, I’m livin’ in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge, someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and Her were born
Come in, She said
I’ll give ya shelter from the storm

I have attended the Spring Mysteries Festival, hosted by the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, many times. It’s really refreshing to be at a large complex multi-day ritual, that is so devotedly and competently done.

Some festivals are the land of the Party Pagan, whose main interest in festivals are in costumes and mead. While there are definitely attendees who fit this mold, this is a festival that isn’t shaped for that purpose, something that is a relief to me. Sometimes it feels like the more religious Pagans are few and hard to find. Based in this experience, the sincere dedication to ritual that deeply engages the gods and the participant, clearly and well executed in this festival is a joy.

As an ecstatic tradition Pagan and lesbian, my interest in the extremely heteronormative streams of Paganisms has been limited. The ATC has in the past been steeped in this valid but not-for-me stream of Paganism. I recall attending a non-mystery ritual there years ago which I had to leave mid ritual because of a requirement to direct energy opposite to the ways the Gods meant for me. However, I was delighted, having been away for several years, to return finding that there was room for me and others like me to participate fully without having to compromise on how our energy runs. All acts of love and pleasure, indeed.

So what actually happens there? Well, it’s a mystery. I can’t actually tell you much about the rituals – which are, well, a mystery. The nature of mysteries is that they don’t translate well to descriptions without corresponding experience. To protect the power of this particular mystery, I’ve given my oath not to.

However, here is how the festival is described on the church’s website:

Since 1985, Aquarian Tabernacle Church has been continuing the Eleusinian Mysteries originally held in Ancient Greece. These mysteries, held every year in honor of Demeter and Persephone, explore universal concepts and truths from the perspective of the seeker of hidden knowledge. Our Priests and Priestesses spend 3-4 months preparing for the festival, working with the energies of the Gods and rehearsing the ritual drama that is presented over 4 days for hundreds of people each Easter Weekend.

Though the main portions of the event focus on Greek deities, there are many workshops and other groups that bring a plethora of alternate ways to explore, including the general mysteries of women, men and those who identify as a mixture of both energies. There is also a vendors space, with many often-requested items and trinkets to take home, and plenty of space for conversations or introspective moments.

Everyone who attends will come away transformed and with wonderful memories of their time in Eleusis.

What I can tell you is that it was personally profound for me, and that a Pagan with a sincere interest in opening her heart to the Gods will find much to nourish her there, as it did me. You get out of it what you contribute, as is true of most things magical. It’s deepened my engagement with several of the Gods on a personal level, and with my matron Goddess in particular. I have attended at times of transition in my life and found it very valuable in seeing the way forward.

With group dormitories (old army barracks) it’s a good festival to go to with your coven. It’s also reasonably accessible for elders, but make sure you let them know about any mobility difficulties when registering.

Beltane is a Pagan/Wiccan festival of sexuality and fertility, usually celebrated on the evening of April 30th or May 1st. When celebrated in a group, the sexuality is usually symbolic, represented by dancing around the May pole – which yes, is representing just what you might think that is meant to represent, and the ribbons encasing it, also, exactly what you’d think. Similarly a chalice and blade may form the central imagery in other rituals. While the traditional imagery is heterosexual, this imagery can be adapted to any configuration of humans you enjoy, again, *all* acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals. When celebrated privately, with just you and your lover, spouse or partner, the symbolism can be more direct, and can be customized to the bodies involved.

Celebrating Beltaine with a Partner

Celebrating Beltane with a partner can be beautiful, sacred, magical and smoking hot all at once. Connecting energetically/psychically and physically with a partner in sacred space and in the presence of the Gods deepens the experience, and can raise energy for a goal of your mutual choosing. If you’re new to Beltaine with a partner, here are some good places to start in planning your ritual.

Setting the Space for Sacred Sexuality

You can site your ritual either out in a growing field or forest, as is traditional, or within your own bedroom. Outside can be tricky to organize, unless you have private access to an outdoor space that feels right for you. Indoors, it’s a good idea to also ensure privacy and to adapt your bedroom or ritual space to fit the sacred space you’ll be creating. Some ideas for location can include:

On a blanket-altar on the floor in the living room or other ritual space

Inside a tent decked out as a temple in the outdoor location of your choice

In your freshly cleaned and tidied bedroom with candles and an altar on a bookcase or dresser and some wordless ritual music playing

On a blanket in the sun warmed soil of your garden before it is planted, or after seeds are in the ground (but not sprouted yet).

Under a particularly sacred tree.

In a cave (you may want to bring a heat source).

In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust

If you are getting up to sacred sexuality, I assume you already know how to cast a circle, call the directions, and invoke the Gods. I suggest casting a nice formal circle, and call the attributes of each direction or element that fit the themes of love and or fertility (if you’re trying to make a baby). As a priestess of Aphrodite, I almost always invoke Her when celebrating Beltaine, but your own matron or patron god is also a good choice. If you are celebrating with a partner who is willing to have ritual sex with you, but isn’t Wiccan, it’s a good idea to ask whether they feel comfortable with you invoking your gods, or to invoke the gods as qualities such as Love, Life, the Sacred, or Joy.

Purification

A ritual bath before casting the circle is a lovely thing to do. You can also anoint one another with oils that smell good to you or massage or bathe one another.

Five Fold Kiss

The five fold kiss is when you consciously and ritually kiss your partner on feet, knees, genitals, heart and lips. I’ve also seen it done as a 7 fold kiss on each of the chakra points. This is a good way to bless the other person’s body and can be done as slowly and thoroughly as you both like. You may wish to say a blessing phrase with each kiss as well, such as “I bless your heart, which loves so bravely”.

Dedicating the Energy

After that make love in whatever way works well for you both, with a focus on being and staying present, staying open to one another’s energy, and touching one another with both love and pleasure. You may discover an extra energy dimension to your love making that may not have been there before. If an orgasm or two, or three happen, you can dedicate that raised energy to a goal you both agree to in advance. If that’s not going to happen, the sacred care, attention and connection is the sacrament. You get out of this kind of ritual the care, attention and love you put into it.

Devoke and ground

It’s a good idea to have some food and water available for after and to devoke the circle, even if you are planning to sleep, or perhaps to make love again after a rest.

I wish you and yours a blessed Beltaine. May all bodies and spirits be blessed.

Mount Aetna, site of the workshop of the God HēphaistosBy BenAveling – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3350813

One of the nice things about being Pagan is that the forces of life – earth, air, fire, water are held sacred by many people, which means that we can relate spiritually to much of popular culture, particularly music.

As a devotee of the Goddess of Love, many love songs have a double meaning to me. Songs that might seem over the top when sung to or about an actual person, make perfect sense when framed as coming to or from the Goddess of love.

Forge of Vulcan by Antoine Wiertz, 19th century. Public domain.

I was dancing with some women last night and a song came on called ‘Love can move mountains”. It occurred to me that it works perfectly as a hymn to the power of Aprhodite. The power of love is such that it can transform anything. Aphrodite’s association with her husband Hephaistos, who lives under mount Vesuvious, adds another layer of meaning to the song. While we may at times lose faith in a particular love or experience of love, we cannot lost faith in Love herself.

You can listen to her version here. For a version that is, well, a little less Celine Dion, you can listen to this version sung by the young Sara Niemietz (or click on the album at right to see, stream or buy the album)

Lyrics to Love Can Move Mountains by Diane Warren

Faith
Trust
Love (love)
(Love can)
Love can move mountains

There ain’t a dream
That don’t have the chance to come true now
It just takes a little faith, baby
Anything that we want to do we can do now
There ain’t nothing in our way, baby
Nothing our love couldn’t rise above
We can get through the night
We can get through the light
Long as we got our love to light the way

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

With a little faith
Just a little trust
If you believe in love
Love can move mountains
Believe in your heart
And feel, feel it in your soul
And love, love can
Love can move mountains

Oh yeah, baby

Oceans deep and mountains high
They can’t stop us
Because love is on our side, baby
We can reach the heavens and touch the sky
Just believe it, believe in you and i, baby
If we got love that is strong enough
We can do anything, we’d get through anything
‘Cause through it all, love will always find a way

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Just a little faith
Just a little trust
If you believe in love
Love can move mountains
Believe in your heart
And feel, feel it in your soul
And love, baby, love can
Love can move mountains

Love can, love can move mountains
Love (trust love, love can move mountains)
If you believe in me and I believe in you (trust love, love can move mountains)
We can believe in love, baby
Love will find a way (trust love, love can move mountains)
Love will find a way, baby
We’ll believe in each other (trust love, love can move mountains)
Oh, baby
Believe in love (trust love, love can move mountains)
Love can move mountains

On how sacred attention is everything

The Pagan choir I lead was working on a new song for Imbolc a few weeks ago, Lisa Thiel’s Imbolc, from the album Circle of the Seasons. It’s a song for Brigid (pronounced Bridjid or Breed) with the following lyrics:

Blessed Bridget comest thou in
Bless this house and all of our kin
Bless this house, and all of our kin
Protect this house and all within

Blessed Bridget come into thy bed
With a gem at thy heart and a crown on thy head
Awaken the fire within our souls
Awaken the fire that makes us whole

Blessed Bridget, queen of the fire
Help us to manifest our desire
May we bring forth all that’s good and fine
May we give birth to our dreams in time

Blessed Bridget comest thou in
Bless this house and all of our kin
From the source of Infinite Light
Kindle the flame of our spirits tonight

There are several different kinds of Pagans in the choir I lead. Some are experienced singers with little experience priestessing, some are experienced priestesses with little experience singing and performing and some are less experienced in either.

However, all are game for an experiment, and Pagan music being a largely oral music tradition, we do a lot of experiments with different ways of arranging and mixing the songs to make them more layered and interesting. However, this most recent experiment was quite powerful.

I paired up the members including myself set us each to sing the song in pairs, at our own speed, as if it was (and is) and invocation of Bridgid.

Myself and one other singer, who is a professional singer, very experienced as a singer but less as a priestess, went into a separate room, grounded and began to sing it, trusting Bridgid to guide us. I asked my partner to sing the song as if she was calling directly to Brigid and invoking the song as a spell. And magic happened. We connected to the energy of the song and inprovised a winding, tight, almost Baltic harmony as we sang the song. I could feel the power of Her flow through both of us an we just followed it.

Encouraged by this success, I went back into the choir room, and we all switched singing partners. My second partner was an experienced priestess whose singing is understandably quite a bit less polished than my first partner. For her my direction to sing the song as an invocation had a quite different flavour. A dedicated and devout priestess, the instruction to sing the song as an invocation to the Goddess Bridgid had the effect of pulling her deeper into the song, making the song real and rich and deep, as if it had been in one dimension before but now was in three. Her tone was better, her volume and tone varied with the meaning of the song, and it had the meaning she brought to it by her devotion. It was transformed by the presence she brought to it.

I think the lesson in this, from Bridgid, Goddess of Bards after all, is that sacred presence makes everything better, and that when songs (and life) mean something and you really attend to that meaning and connection with the sacred, it transforms what you do.

After we finished singing, we thanked and devoked Bridgid, because She was definitely present.

I realized today my prosperity spell has taken effect in yet another unforeseen way. I was doing a tarot reading about a dilemma I have and received the following cards.

In the ‘hopes and fears’ position of this reading, which is notable for it’s long series of major arcana cards, there is the magician card. I was taught to read a major arcana card in this position as fact rather than hope or fear. I was also taught to read the magician as a card signifying the results of a spell.

The reading is about the proposed sale of my house to developers, for about $900,000 more than it’s assessed value, and about $700,000 more than it’s usual market value. Because of some recent zoning changes in my area, the land my house sits on has become much more valuable. No offer has yet been made, but potential purchasers have been expressing interest.

I’ve been anxious about this prospect. Sure, it’s a lot of money, but houses in Vancouver are expensive, and what will I replace my home with? As well, I’m an orphan, and as a result of having lost my family at a young age, my homes take on extra importance, as I have no other anchors. This house has a lot of loving labour put into it, and a lot of memories. It’s the home I created and shared with my ex partner of 14 years, and selling it will let go of the physical space of that history. The contract I signed three days ago, one week after casting my spell, says that if my price is met by a potential buyer, I will sell the house. I have declared to the forces of life that I will harvest this fruit if it is ripe.

This is the perilous nature of magic. Once I have cast a spell, I do not know exactly how it will fall, and I have consented to it’s completion. “She changes everything She touches, and everything She touches, changes”. This is particularly true of spells, for they give consent to the Divine to speed up the natural forces of causation in your life. A cast spell is like that William Hutchison Murray quote inspired by Goethe:

“the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”

It is fall, when even the trees let go of what was once beautiful and full of life.

As witches, it is our job to make compost of it to nourish the new and the living.

So yesterday I set my intention. I was still struggling with it as of last night when I went to a free form dance class with some friends. I’d intended to dance up some energy and joy to support my intention, but had found out I’d misplaced a large amount of cash just before the class. I danced hopefulness and faith and by the end of the class felt better.

I got home and immediately found the cash in the first place I looked, for which I was very grateful and saw as part of the spell working.

This morning I got a big new project from an existing client. Harvest!

I wanted to write about this because it’s part of how prosperity magic works. You need to be mindful of what happens and -this is very important – see it all as part of the process of the spell working with you and your life.

Google ‘prosperity magic’ and you will find a lot of rhyming spells, and information about exactly what herb or stone to pair together with your working. I don’t know whether such things work. That’s not how I do magic.

I own a house in pricey Vancouver, and a successful business, both of which I came by through some freakishly good luck, or as we witches call it, intention and manifesting. Magic works.

Prosperity magic is straightforward and doesn’t need to be complicated.

Successful spell-casting combines a set intention, a symbolic action that reinforces the desired result, a practical feel for what is possible without straining the fabric of the universe too much, and the ability to sense which way the wind is blowing, magically speaking. We set our sail so that the winds of change blow us in roughly the right direction. If we know what the heart of the ideal outcome is, we can tell when we there.

When recruiting help from the energies of the universe, it helps to be realistic. Just like the old truism that you can only have two of the three qualities of fast, good and cheap at once, in magic you can often only have two of specific, fast and easy.

I’ve never found it helpful to be being incredibly specific about details of the things I need. I find it better to be specific only about those things that are truly critical. Maybe I just enjoy being surprised. Or maybe I have faith in the universe to give me what I need, if not always exactly what I wanted.

There is a kernel, at the heart, that is the most important thing about your goal. Holding fast to that and letting the rest go will help you obtain your goal more quickly and easily. This kernel is short and rings true. It contains nothing optional.

In my life, I’ve made some work choices that have affected my income. I chose to let go of a big client, and am now needing to replace that income. It has created a vacuum to draw in something else, and I’m trying to be mindful about what that is. I’m planning some magic to help bless this process and guide me to where the ideal outcome is.

Which way is the world flowing? Go with it.

When thinking about how to shape a spell, I first look at the time of year and time of month. We are at the harvest time of the year, reaching into the fallow, storytelling and bright community time of the year, the time where we keep one another warm, loved and fed. Fall (we are just past fall equinox at time of writing) is a time for harvest rather than planting. On a lunar level, I sit just before the first of the three days of the full moon, also a time of harvest and fruition.

The way I read it is, this is what way the large solar and lunar tides are flowing, toward harvesting or building upon something I’ve already developed. There is also a theme of that human community that comes in winter – filled with connection, music and story.

Knowing that, I can sort through my goals, not just for ones that fit those patterns, but also for ones that can be seen in that light, even if that’s not the way I normally look at them. Cleaning house, for example, can be seen either as removing mess ( a waning pattern) or creating order (a waxing or increasing pattern), depending on the time of month or year. In this way, many goals can be expressed in a way that suits the prevailing magical ‘weather’.

Know your intention

So what is my intention? To bring in money? To harvest what I have in terms of skills, networks and resources? To harvest a new way of using those skills, networks and resources? All I know is that the answer is to seek something that is already almost ripe, whether I have noticed it before or not. This leads me to the important thing, the statement of intention: my harvest basket is full and I live a life I love. I am holding on to the tiller.

Symbolic Activities

So once the magical climate, and intention are set, the next step is to find a symbolic action that fits and reinforces the intention, in a way in keeping with the weather. This is setting the sail.

Some common symbolic actions that can be done in service of prosperity are along the themes of making space for wealth to flow in, blessing and taking good care of what you have to invite more, and affirming you have plenty, even enough to contribute and give away. Simple actions like mindfully housecleaning, repairing, clearing clutter by giving things away, preparing a good meal and eating it, or dancing, when done with an intention in mind, can be very effective spells in and of themselves.

Allies

Who are your magical allies? Are there specific Gods you connect with for guidance and support? Do you have ancestors who want to see their line prosper? Ancestors with relevant skills, qualities or experience? Or are the broad forces of nature your main allies – Mother Earth who feeds you, Mother Ocean who connects you, the force of Life that flows through you? Allies can be involved in many ways – the traditional prayer as supplication or asking for blessing and guidance, and if possible, a little push in the right direction.

Putting it all together

Magic doesn’t have to be complicated. I scale the level of ritual to what feels right. If the task feels very important and formal, I will do a full ritual with grounding, calling and casting. If I don’t have the energy for that or it doesn’t fit, I may go as simple as a symbolic action, such as cleaning my house while saying a chant out loud or in my head. I may plant a healthy, unlikely-to-fail plant outside my front path, light a candle with my intention written on it, or sing a blessing every time I climb the stairs (as I did when manifesting the down payment for the house I now live in).

Red Stag in grass

In the current example, I will call on the force of Life, who I envision as a sacred Stag, and the force of Love, who I see and feel in many ways. I ask them to bless my harvest, to help me find and complete opportunities to fill my harvest basket. I will notice and celebrate everything that now comes to me, seeing it as evidence my spell is working and expressing gratitude.

Because creating music is what I love, I wrote and will sing a chant (read lyrics and hear recording below). The actual spell is still taking shape. Here’s what I have so far: singing combined with a action. That action will be listing and pursuing all existing talents, connections and resources in a spirit of harvest and then welcoming and celebrating everything that comes. Stay tuned for part 2 for how that takes shape.

If you’d like more practical magic, please put your email address in the subscribe box in the sidebar to receive notices when I put up new posts.

Life and Love
Overflowing
filled to brimming
warm and fed
Life and Love
is the harvest
I dance to where I’m led.

Life and love
Wit and Wisdom
web and wonder
wild and tame
basket full
a horn of plenty
harvest time is here.